Diary of an Autistic Boy

The Effects of Corona

THIS IS THE FIRST CHAPTER OF MY NEW BOOK 'MIND DUMP OF AN AUTISTIC PERSON'
IF YOU ENJOY THIS THEN I WILL BE ADDING SIMILAR CONTENT ON MONDAYS AND THURSDAYS EVERY WEEK.

I am extremely late to the conversation of this however I would like to show how the effects of lockdown and being stuck in a house constantly has effected both me as a person as well as the effects it has had on my relationships (or lack thereof) of people I thought I was close to.

I will start by saying that if I fail any exam in the next 2 years this is 100% the reason for this. Not the fact that I 'forgot it was happening'. Not the fact that I didnt sleep the night before. And definitely not because I didnt revise.

As I have had to do my work for college at home my progress has, to put it kindly, dropped of a cliff with the Eiffel Tower strapped to its knees. I found it extremely hard to be able to actually get up and do college work at home as I have had boundaries, some conscious and some subconscious that have made it extremely difficult to focus on anything related to college without becoming stressed or hyper focused. Being hyper focused may not sound bad to begin with but when you need to split up your time between effectively 4 A Levels, it's the easiest way to fail on all but one of them.

The way that I have been getting around this is by replicating my timetable at college, allowing of course for a extra 2 hours asleep. This started kind of accidentally because I began to do work in hour and a half intervals as that is how much I would spend on them in college. This has definitely helped me to start my work however my inability to focus has proven that even if I removed all distractions to I would be unable to do the work because of ..... oh look a bird.

The way that I have been working around this is by coffee. I have no explanation as to why but it seems to focus my mind more than scatter it as the caffeine inside of it would suggest. If I only have 1 or 2 cups a day it improves my focus to a point where I can actually do work effectively without having to struggle through 3 hours doing only and hours worth of work. This has however caused problems in the way that I am struggling to keep up with people and make sure that I am staying active which I have also found helps me concentrate but due to the current situation globally has limited some of the in the beginning however as the lockdown is being slowly eased I plan on going out more on runs but probably just playing football or some kind of simple sport.

The effects that me getting caught up on work is having is it extremely hard to keep up with the things happening in my social circles, which to anyone struggling with maintaining friendships or maintaining small talk I have found quite effective. This has both helped me and hindered me. It has helped to go back to people I may not have spoken to for a while and it has, on a more sour not, showed me which 'friendships' where being supported by me or by face to face contact which has not been happening for obvious reasons.

The friendships that are at moment at best stagnant and a worst toxic are hopefully able to be reconstructed after the state of pandemic is pulled back. Another positive effect of this is I have no longer had the stress and anxiety of the drama going on around college which I have found quite refreshing but I also kind of miss which I put down to the on of, I believe my most annoying, traits of wanting to know everything going on around me.

Another thing that The Pandemic has done is brought everyone back under on house again. This has been both extremely nice to have everyone back home ( I don't know why I say everyone back when it is only my older sister) and also extremely stressful and tiresome. This is because there are 9 people and a dog living in a house together with little to no rest of each others company and also no way to avoid each other. This has caused many stressful days and weekends and I envy the people who are living either alone or with only a few people. I have also come to realise the importance of solitude, even if it is just on a bus journey sat on your own, to the point where me and my oldest youngest sister have now started to clash over who gets to go and takes things to my grandparents house just because it means a hour alone on a bus with nobody talking to you or bothering you.

I am going to leave it there for this entry as I have been writing for nearly an hour there and am starting to get cramp in my thumbs.